Friday, April 26, 2013

Writing Evergreen Blog Posts

Creating and maintaining a blog can be a major time investment, particularly if you want to attract and retain readers who want to buy services and products you offer on your blog or linked website. You want your posts to continue generating traffic even if you are on vacation or simply decide to take a few days off. A blog that generates a constant flow of traffic can be well worth the long hours you spend at your keyboard.

One of the simplest ways to create a reliable flow of traffic is to write "evergreen" posts. These posts contain content that has staying power in search engine listings and continues to bring in visitors for months or years after publication. A solid bank of evergreen posts is essential for generating predictable traffic month after month.

Writing evergreen posts involves several considerations:

1) Choose topics that will be as relevant

Conversely, some topics naturally have limited lifespans. If you own an automotive blog, writing a post titled "The Best New Cars for 2013" might bring in short-term traffic; however, it will not be relevant a year from now.

2) Avoid referencing current events that people will not likely remember in the future. People might care about a pop star's latest gaffe today, but they probably won't care a month from now. Likewise, you should avoid referencing current movies, news, television shows, and local events that only appeal to Internet users for a limited time.

3) Limit your use of external links to relatively new websites and blogs. Linking to a site that might not be active a few months from now reduces the evergreen potential of your content. If you need to provide a link so that visitors can obtain additional information, stick with external sites that have been active for at least a few years. Dead links confuse visitors and reduce the perceived authority of your site. They also won't win you any favor from search engine spiders.

Of course, not every post you write has to be evergreen. You can include some posts that provide information about fluid topics to sustain reader interest and keep your content fresh. Focusing some of your posts on evergreen topics, though, can reward you with traffic for years to come.
to Internet users five years from now as they are today. Some information changes little from year to year. For example, if you own a blog about creative writing, a post about grammar, style, or punctuation will have staying power. This is because English grammar and punctuation rules do not noticeably change from year to year. Similarly, if you own a gardening blog, a post that lists plants that grow well in shady areas will continue bringing in traffic years from now.

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